


Those Who Watch The Alpha

by DarkAkumaHunter



Series: The Treacherous Rivers of Time [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2020-09-07 08:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20306833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAkumaHunter/pseuds/DarkAkumaHunter
Summary: A series of little side-stories for Running with Wolves.Bits and pieces from characters other than Stiles.





	1. Derek I

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting up this little side-project partially just in order to help me arrange my thoughts and clear my head in order to get back into writing RWW. Also I just haven't written anything in a long time, and little scenes from something pre-established is easier than jumping straight back into thinking up totally new things to dabble in.
> 
> I've set it for 5 chapters, because that's how many ideas I have for it, but whether they all get written out is a different question.

Returning to Beacon Hills had really been one surprise after another. Some good, some bad, all completely outside of anything he could ever have anticipated.

In some ways, Laura’s death seemed like this strangely insignificant stepping stone, a line drawn in the sand to separate the before and the after.

(It wasn’t.

Insignificant, that is.

Derek and Laura might never have been some inseparable sibling duo, but they were _family_, and they loved each other the best they could once they abruptly became the _only_ conscious and living Hales left.

_Clinging too tightly, drawing blood, refusing to let go._

_Ignoring each other. Full of jagged bleeding wounds that were only exacerbated in their togetherness._

_Loving and hating and coming and going, dysfunctional and raw and **real**_.

There was nothing insignificant about the death of Laura Hale. But it did mark the end of an era.)

**oOoOo**

In the same way that Derek had never considered the possibility of Laura’s death, he never could have anticipated the journey her alpha spark would embark on afterwards either.

It wasn’t as if he’d _forgotten_ that Peter was still alive – the guilt too crushing and ever-present to ever let his uncle’s comatose state completely slip his conscious mind – but he _had_ – both of them at that – forgotten to contemplate what might come _after_ the coma.

(No were stayed in a coma forever, after all, not unless the brain itself was truly beyond saving.)

The Hales had been the only pack in the area, and while Derek had heard a few stories about Omegas, he had never seen a feral wolf with his own eyes, never experienced anything to make the thought stick around.

If he had, maybe then he might have seen it coming.

(It was another thing to feel guilty about later. That neither he nor Laura had had the wherewithal to consider what six years hurt and alone might do to their uncle, to the balance between man and beast inside of him.)

**oOoOo**

When Derek first found Laura’s body, he was overcome with an unyielding sense of numbness.

She hadn’t told him why she was going to Beacon Hills.

(It was one of their distant months.)

All she had given him was a contact timeframe, and when it passed without a single word Derek had gone to investigate.

He hadn’t expected death.

(Sometimes, you try and make something positive out of having gotten your entire family burned to death. Things like: _surely this is enough suffering for a lifetime,_ and _things have got to start looking up sooner or later, right?_

Those thoughts never lasted overlong, though. Swimming upstream against the strong current of guilt, well, it wasn’t a battle he engaged in very often. That sort of thing took more energy than he thought he might ever have again.)

But death loved the Hales, and he buried the half of his sister’s body that the police hadn’t yet found, and while he thought he should probably shed at least a few tears in the process, instead all he had was an intensely heavy nothingness.

**oOoOo**

Had Laura not been _dead_, she could have attested to the fact that Derek had never really learned how to deal with grief.

(Had she been alive to hear it, Derek would have complained that she hadn’t exactly coped any better. Setting aside his unspeakable guilt, the only differences between them over those years stemmed from Laura becoming an almost insatiable social butterfly, regardless of how shallow Derek felt her connections might be, and Derek conversely becoming increasingly withdrawn and taciturn.)

Derek didn’t feel much of anything other than determination in the immediate aftermath of Laura’s death.

When he found out that _Peter_ had <strike>maybe</strike> <strike>most likely</strike> <strike>probably</strike> killed her, the numbness began to fracture.

(Spider-webbing grief. Loneliness. Confusion.

_Why why why why why…_

Denial.

**Anger.**)

**oOoOo**

Peter Hale would never not be a complicated issue as far as Derek was concerned.

Derek had spent plenty of his childhood idolising his young uncle. They’d started clashing lots, incompatible personalities, once he reached high school, and there was certainly enough bitter notes in their relationship by the time of the fire. But Peter had almost _died_ because of Derek’s naivety; _had_, in fact, lost many years to it.

Add to that the whiplash of discovering Peter had killed Laura only for Peter himself to wind up dead not long after, well, there was an awful lot going on to unpack that Derek really didn’t want to spend too long thinking about.

If it had been difficult before, trying to parse his grief through his guilt and self-hatred, it was even worse trying to figure out how to feel about Peter.

Was he _allowed_ to grieve, to be upset, when he still had so much anger and confusion burning him up inside? Was he allowed to be angry with the Sheriff’s kid for what he did while also entertaining a guilty sort of relief that the choice had been taken out of his hands?

What even _was_ grieving?

He didn’t think he would ever figure out a good answer for any of it.


	2. Scott I

Scott always had nightmares when he fought with Stiles.

They rarely clashed in ways that could truly be considered _fighting_ rather than simple disagreements and arguments, but when they did it always shook Scott to the very core of his being.

For a long time Scott had felt like it was the two of them against the world. When they fought, it was like the foundations of his world were being tested.

_What if this is what breaks us?_

_What happens if he leaves me behind?_

_Where would I go from there?_

_How would I even try to begin?_

Terrible theoretical scenarios haunted his sleeping mind in the lull between fight and forgiveness.

If their friendship ended – truly, irreconcilably, a burned bridge with no chance of repair – Scott didn’t know what he would do with himself. Maybe it was unhealthy co-dependency, but Scott didn’t think he could ever be the one to sever that connection, not even after the worst of fights. He might stop trying, but the moment Stiles decided to reach out to him again Scott couldn’t imagine a situation wherein he didn’t take it. Stiles however had always been a wildcard in any situation.

Things had changed a little this year. Their status quo was being altered slowly, day by day. Scott had no idea how that might affect things.

Sometimes it felt as though someone had changed the rules without clueing him in.

Making new friends or making up with old ones was perfectly normal, healthy behaviour. Stiles had, for reasons entirely unknown to Scott, decided to rekindle an old relationship with Erica Reyes of all people, and even if Scott was confused by the sudden nature of it the situation itself was _fine_. Scott had never been the possessive sort of person who wanted Stiles to only ever look to him for companionship. Hell, Scott made a new friend too!

(Even if that was motivated by the fact that he’d fallen head over heels into infatuation with the new transfer student. The reason didn’t matter! They were both expanding their circle of friends in the new year.)

Giving up on unrealistic and unattainable crushes was also good, healthy, if not somewhat uncharacteristic behaviour, given the obsessive quality of Stiles’ previous affections for the uncaring Lydia Martin. That one had thrown Scott more than the Erica thing, for sure. Surely it had only been just before Christmas that Scott recalled Stiles last mentioning all the tweaks he was making to his long-term wooing plans.

What could possibly have happened to make Stiles toss that aside?

But therein lay the problem at hand.

Stiles wouldn’t talk to him.

_Something_ had happened right before the start of term, and no matter how hard Scott tried Stiles refused to clue him in.

It was driving him mad, but all he could do was poke and prod and hope that one day something changed.

**oOoOo**

Luckily for Scott’s peace of mind, it seemed as though 2012 was not yet the herald of a devastating Stilinski-McCall break-up.

Unluckily for his _sanity_, Stiles eventually relented and opened up a bit about the things that had made him so standoffish all year.

Being handed a book of legends and told to ‘think of it as a history book’ had been strange enough already, but the conversation that eventually followed was a whole other level of mind-boggling.

It was also highly traumatic.

That part was mostly Erica’s fault. I mean, who wouldn’t be absolutely freaked out if you were having an already confusing conversation with a friend and then all of a sudden someone’s face freaking monster morphed right in front of you?!

For one terrifying moment Scott had seriously feared for his life!

It was just a lot, okay?

Don’t get him wrong, Scott was thankful that Stiles had decided to clear the air and trust him with the secret that had been causing such a rift between them. It was just the fact that ‘Hey, the supernatural is a real thing!’ was so far from what Scott had been expecting that his brain actually stalled at the absurdity of it all.

Werewolves? Since when??

But Stiles wasn’t in the business of making up alternative stories when he was content with dodging questions, and even putting aside Scott’s trust in Stiles there was just no denying what he had seen Erica do. He could try as much as he wanted, but it had happened. It was _real._

Scott didn’t know what to _do_ with that knowledge.

Stiles kept telling him not to worry about it, that it wasn’t his problem and he didn’t need to think too hard about things, but that didn’t sit right with Scott. Stiles’ life had suddenly become a lot more dangerous while Scott wasn’t paying attention, and that was a scary though.

Scott didn’t want to be a passive bystander to this whole situation, but there was just nothing he could do. One of the most annoying things about it was that Scott had pretty much always been powerless in the ways that mattered. Stiles was more cunning than him, healthier, always quick on his feet both physically and mentally. If they got into trouble, Stiles was the one who bailed them out. Now Stiles had levelled up again, and Scott was even more helpless than before.

He wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do.

Nothing, he supposed, other than continuing to be Stiles’ friend and make sure he understood that this whole werewolf thing wasn’t going to change their friendship.

(A steadfast friend was a bigger boon than Scott thought it was. Nothing was more reassuring than knowing you always had someone in your corner. Maybe he would realise that in time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of me wants to say not to take these little bits and pieces too seriously because they're just sort of random brain-leak snippets, but to each their own.
> 
> I don't have any target for how many of these I'm going to write, I'm just leaving it in-progress until I finish the main story and then I'll mark it complete.


End file.
